


Things We Lost In The Fire

by afewmistakesago



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, cursed rumple and alice, flashbacks to rumbelle, loosely based on s7 spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 13:56:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11899164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afewmistakesago/pseuds/afewmistakesago
Summary: I posted a shorter version on Tumblr.Based on spoilers of Rumple taking a photo of Belle and Gideon at Gideon's first birthday party, and Cursed!Rumple (Weaver) and Alice talking on a bench. Weaver has had valuable things stolen from him, and he needs Alice's help to find them.





	Things We Lost In The Fire

**Author's Note:**

> I used "Belle" and "Gideon" for Weaver's family members as opposed to giving them cursed names as well.

He knows it’s foolish to confide in this young woman, one he’s often spoken to on less-friendly terms. But Alice has been better as of late, and he knows that she knows the seedy side of town better than he does. “Someone’s stolen from me,” he says, sitting down next to her on the park bench. He could see her clear annoyance when he approached her, probably scrambling in her head to think if she’d done anything wrong lately.

Immediately, she becomes defensive. “It wasn’t me, Weaver,” she says, chin high in the air, narrowing her eyes and crossing her arms. Her distaste for him reminds him of that of a sullen teenager, and he can’t say that he blames her.

He sighs. “I know that,” he says. “Look, I bought you dinner.”

Accepting the bag he extends to her, Alice cautiously removes the tin foil around the burger. “It’s not poisoned, dear,” Weaver says, watching as she takes a bite. He can recognize a desperate soul. From what he’s put together about Alice, she started running when she was eighteen, and Hyperion Heights is where she’s ended up now that her funds have run out. She could get back on her feet and probably be good at something if she’d put her mind to it.

“Thank you,” she mumbles. A crowd of trick-or-treaters passes them. He’s almost forgotten it’s technically a holiday. “Don’t you have teenagers to yell at for egging houses?”

“Very funny. I have tonight off.”

“Aren’t there… people you could be with, or something? Family?” she asks, still uneasy with his presence. 

“I could ask the same of you, and I bet we have the same answer.”

She fidgets, crossing and uncrossing her legs. “So, something was stolen. Was it important?”

“To me, yes, and to them, no. They’ll find the safe only has a few keepsakes. A blanket, a rattle, a wedding ring, a toy rabbit, a photograph,” he lists off, wondering again why he was telling her this, but unable to stop himself. He’s never even told Rogers, the cop he’s been supervising as of late, about his family. Maybe it’s because Rogers still believes in the good of the world, and he didn’t want to take that almost enviable belief away from him. 

For a moment, he can almost see the photo in his now open hand. It’s faded in the years since it was taken, but remains one of his favorites. Belle had doubted him when he’d bought a Polaroid camera for Gideon’s first birthday party, thinking it silly. With all his failed attempts at photography, he did capture one happy moment. Belle was sitting next to Gideon’s cake with a bright, genuine smile as loose strands of hair fell around her face, their son mid-laugh in her lap, smiling at his father with the funny machine in his hands. It was a beautiful reminder of their joyful spirits, a family more perfect than he ever deserved. Weaver previously carried it in his wallet every day until it became one of the only photos he had left of them. 

“Why’d you put that crap in a safe?” Alice asks, rolling her eyes and bringing him back to reality.

He shook his head. “It’s not junk. It’s my family’s.”

This caught the girl’s attention. “Thought you didn’t have a family.”

“I don’t. I used to.”

Alice chews at her lip, the burger mostly gone, avoiding the question that lingers in the air. “Shouldn’t someone like you have a house alarm or something?”

“I forgot to set it before I went to work,” he says, shaking his head. “They picked the patio door’s lock. Had I been home, they wouldn’t have gotten to it, but the one time I was careless…”

“They got your family’s things,” Alice finishes.

He nods, and he knows she’s going to ask what happened, but something in his heart pangs nonetheless when she does. “They died,” he answers her question softly, fidgeting with the ring on his widower’s finger. “My wife was a wonderful woman named Belle, and our son was named Gideon. They were everything to me.”

Weaver trails off for a moment, suddenly emotional as he thinks about the end of their story. “They were in a car crash, just after he turned three. I was working. And shortly after I moved here to try and… start fresh, most of our things were destroyed in a fire.”

The day before the worst day of his life, they had just driven back from a quick family trip to the beach. The weather had been gorgeous, Gideon loved the water, and he loved Belle’s hair with ocean-induced curls. It was late when they got back, Gideon was cranky, and Belle rolled her eyes at the laundry piling up as they unpacked their suitcases. Once Gideon was down for the night and they were in their bedroom getting ready to sleep, Belle wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Sweetheart,” she said, and he could almost predict what the next words out of his mouth would be. “Can you take the day off tomorrow and we can pretend we’re on vacation for just one more day?”

He sighed, shaking his head. “I have to work, you know that. If I miss another day they’ll reassign the Domino case.”

Belle pouted, and he hated upsetting her. “I understand,” she said. “I just wish you got more time off.”

His hands settled on her waist. “I love spending time with you and Gideon, but I love my job, too. I have to do the not fun thing sometimes so we can have fun later.”

She nodded, leaning up to kiss him. “I know.”

He slipped out of bed early the next morning. Belle sleepily woke up to kiss his cheek and told him to have a good day, then went back to bed. He left coffee in the pot for her and peeked in on his sleeping son before he left for work, careful not to wake him. That was the last time he ever saw them. Weaver cursed himself every day, wondering if things would be different if he had done what Belle wanted and stayed home. Would Belle have even decided to go to the grocery store if he had been home? Would he have gone with them and been hit just the same, but at least been with them? Or would it all have been avoided, and Gideon would be in middle school, and he might even have a sibling or two. 

The fire had been a freak accident, the tenant in the apartment below him leaving her stove on accidentally. His storage closet went up in flames. The fireman had told him he was lucky that the fire was contained to the closet, but losing the majority of his old things had nearly broken him. He began resenting going to work more and more with every year, but it was the only thing he knew how to do. Weaver felt more like a machine than a man. It was almost like he hadn’t lost just things in the fire, but he’d lost himself.

“Bad luck,” Alice says quietly after absorbing his answer, staring down at the ground.

“The worst,” Weaver says, with a self-deprecating chuckle. “But you could surmise why it’s important that I retrieve those items.”

Alice looks at him again, nodding, as if taking him seriously for the first time. “Yeah. I may have an idea who took your things.”

And then they’re off, and maybe because it’s Halloween it doesn’t seem to misplaced, the detective and the lost girl working together to bring back to him the only physical memories left of the people he still cares the most about.


End file.
